Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Judgment/Judgment-022
Last-Modified: 1999/05/27
Heydrich's Appointment by Goering
81. We have stressed the connection between the cessation of
emigration and the extermination order, because this is
important for the understanding of document T/179, which is
one of the basic documents in the history of the
extermination. This is Heydrich's letter of appointment
from Goering. In the copy submitted to us, the letter is
dated July 1941, without specifying the day, but it is clear
from other documents (T/180, T/181) that the date of
appointment was 31 July 1941. And this is the text of the
letter:
"In addition to the task with which you were already
charged by an order dated 24.1.39, namely to bring the
Jewish problem to a suitable solution, as far as
possible, according to prevailing conditions, by
emigration or evacuation, I further direct you hereby
to make all the necessary organizational, substantive
and material preparations for the general solution of
the Jewish problem within the area of German influence
in Europe.
To the extent that the competence of other central
authorities be involved in this matter, they should be
asked to co-operate.
I also order you to supply me shortly with a general
proposal in regard to preliminary organizational,
substantive and material steps to be taken for the
implementation of the desired Final Solution of the
Jewish Question"
The letter, dated 24 January 1939, is document T/125,
mentioned above, wherein Heydrich was appointed to head the
Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration.
In the above memorandum by Luther (T/196), Heydrich is
quoted as saying that this letter of appointment, too, was
given to Heydrich by Goering in accordance with an order
from Hitler (supra, p. 5).
A comparison of the two documents (T/179 and T/125) shows
that this time (in document T/179) reference is made to "a
general solution of the Jewish question within the area
under German influence in Europe" and to "the desired Final
Solution of the Jewish Question." These expressions were
missing in the previous document (T/125). The principal
material difference lies in the word "evacuation," which
appears in T/179 and does not appear in T/125. But in
T/179, as well, there is no mention of the word
extermination. However, there is no mistaking the true
meaning, as the Accused himself confirms in his statement
T/37, p. 168. The date of the letter T/179 (not shown to
the Accused at the time) was not known to him, and he
ascribed it to a later period. But he is conversant with
its implication, for this is what he says of the letter of
appointment:
"We can attribute it to the period when emigration was
no longer possible, and the radical solution began."
Thus, at the time of this appointment, emigration had ceased
to be a practical solution for the removal of masses of
Jews, whose numbers had increased in the meantime because of
new conquests in the East. Accordingly, the stress in the
letter of appointment is on "evacuation," which means
extermination.

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